Incoming Technology Queenstown CEO Sarah Russell. PHOTO: SUPPLIED
Inaugural chief executive for Technology Queenstown starting next month
Searching for Technology Queenstown’s (TQ) first CEO, founding chair Roger Sharp posed the question: "Could this be the best job on the planet?"
Now, following 200-plus applications from New Zealand and around the world, he’s found his person, Sydney-based Kiwi, Sarah Russell, who says "Iabsolutely agree with that statement".
Tech development agency TQ launched early this year with the aim of building a world-leading tech sector in Queenstown-Lakes.
And growing a sector representing less than 2% of GDP to more than 15%, and thereby diversifying an economy whose heavy reliance on tourism was exposed during Covid.
Russell, who starts her role on January 28, says "I am absolutely thrilled to have this opportunity to come back home and do something really important for the region".
She’s had more than 25 years’ international experience in financial services and technology.
After senior leadership roles at Commonwealth Bank of Australia, she co-founded in 2017 a Sydney-based A1 software company, Elula, whose products are used by many of Australia’s leading banks.
Sharp states: "We are privileged to have an individual of Sarah’s calibre to lead TQ."
Explaining her selection, he says "I was very keen to pick someone who had both big company and small company experience, and particularly experience as a founder".
He also likes the fact she’s "a strategist at heart".
"And then she’s a Kiwi, she’s coming home, which is great. But I think, importantly also, she’s female and just has a quietly understated ability to get things done, which I really like."
For her part, Russell — who also declares she "absolutely" loves Queenstown — says she has "a very unique set of skills I think will enable me to be successful in this role".
"I started my early career actually working in economics in NZ and looking at regional economic development, and I’ve always had a passion for that.
"So I think the opportunity to come in and make a real difference in the region, drive growth, economic diversification and really create some high-value technology roles in the region is very meaningful and will definitely have a long-term impact in the region.
"And I think it’s going to be quite a ride and a super-fun journey along the way."
Russell adds her two sons are "absolutely-mad mountain bikers and snowboarders, so when I’m not working I think I’ll be spending all my spare time on the side of a mountain somewhere".
Sharp notes TQ’s three big priorities this year have now been ticked off.
The first was to raise money, which has mostly come from corporates — "we’ve got about half a million dollars a year guaranteed for the next five years, and some one-off grants, and I expect us to double that over the next couple of years".
His second priority was to attract a university — and Otago Uni’s come onboard.
And the third was to hire a CEO.
He says in Russell’s first week "we’re going to put several hundred post-it notes on a wall of all the different things we could do, and we’re going to pluck a handful of priorities and be quite ruthless about executing them".
"If you think about building a tech economy here over the next 20 years, what we have to start doing is focus on the really major things that will enable everybody to be successful — and that’s getting companies to move here, it’s building a labour force, it’s getting the university here.
"It’s working out what we’re going to be good at."
